Colorado Boulevard

I read with interest the front page article about Bob's Big Boy (News-Press, July 2) having been in that stage of my life in Glendale during the late '40s and early '50s. It is a true fact about Richard Woodruff and his part in Bob's beginning. The Woodruffs lived next door to Bob's Pantry; it later became Green's Plumbing, and Richard's father worked for my father in the painting business. They later moved to Richard's Place, near the Glendale Adventist Academy, off E. Chevy Chase Drive.

The Glendale News-Press in the weekend edition of April 14 printed an excellent investigative article "How safe are you on city streets?" on the traffic problems that continue unabated on Brand Boulevard. I recommend this article to everyone as it continues to be available at our local libraries. Glendale's decision makers have turned a blind eye to the traffic problems that continue to worsen with each passing day. There are many deaths and injuries in the downtown area that the past City Council refused to address.

Glendale's main street, Brand Boulevard, needs a better mix of retail tenants if it's ever going to promote more pedestrian traffic and coax people out of the Americana. Let's see, a law office, a dentist, two copy stores, a thrift store, a corset shop, a beauty school where you can watch students perform $5 haircuts or sit in their chairs looking bored out of their minds? Yes, there is a Starbucks, but it's the smallest and most cramped one you will every find. And of course, several empty store fronts.

Molly Shore When the Human Burrito debuts Sunday in Pasadena's Doo Dah Parade, spectators along the parade route will shout out their favorite ingredients to fill a 25-foot tortilla. It is all part of the zaniness of the annual event, celebrating its 26th year. Upon a signal, the big tortilla will roll out and the ingredients will pile in, based on what the crowd wants in their burrito, said Burbank resident Pam Johnson, one of the human ingredients.

DOWNTOWN GLENDALE ? Catching a bus along Brand Boulevard is becoming more comfy this month, with the installation of bus shelters equipped with benches, interior lighting and skylights. Workers from ShelterCLEAN, a transit shelter management company, started installing the 13 downtown shelters. The process might last a few weeks, company field manager Nelson Enriquez said. The silver Brand Boulevard bus shelters are provided through an agreement between the city and CBS Outdoor, a company that sells out-of-home advertising, said Kathryn Engel, a transit manager for the city?

Public Storage is giving new meaning to the word “collaboration” with its 2014 entry into the 125th Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena this Wednesday. The Glendale-based company invited employees from 33 regional centers across the country to help decorate a part of its inaugural float, titled “Adventures in Space” and featuring a “secret message” from the “mother ship” that will be spelled out in an alien alphabet. Each center was sent a letter that is part of the message, and workers decorated each one in yellow straw flowers.

The Glendale City Council Tuesday approved a land exchange with developer Sal Gangi to secure an 18-acre parcel near Whiting Woods for open space. The deal has been in the works for several years. Gangi owns 21 acres of the property, known as Deerpass, and will reserve about three acres to develop two single family homes. In exchange for the Deerpass property, the city is giving Gangi 2.16 acres of excess Foothill (210) Freeway property at 4101 Pennsylvania Ave., near Encinal Road.

Enough is enough, already! It seems so long ago now that city officials said that Phase I of the $7.92-million North Brand Boulevard Improvement Project would be done in October ? of last year. When work began in April 2005, little did anyone know that unexpected glitches, such as a $1.1-million water main that needed to be replaced, would delay the project. Delays have led to more delays. At one point, city officials said work between Colorado Boulevard and Milford Street would be done by October, then November; then they said Christmas; and that schedule was revised to April.

Local residents turned out in huge numbers for the opening of Lon Bard's Glendale Theatre near Adams and Colorado streets in October of 1925, built on property owned by local businessman M. G. Khodigian. In fact, so many showed up that some couldn't even get in for the festivities: two full shows with entertainment, the first screening of Pathe News, a Felix the Cat cartoon, a comedy and the feature, "Speed. " It seems possible that a young boy about 10 years old named George Haney might have been at that grand opening.

After 70 years in business, Ernie Jr.'s Taco House will close for the last time on Saturday and many lifelong fans are flocking to the eatery this week for their last chance to munch on its Mexican fare. The restaurant has been a family business since opening in Lincoln Heights in 1944, during World War II, a period when tacos, burritos and enchiladas weren't sold on as many street corners as today, said owner Ernie Cruz, whose mother started the business. “We have an old menu that's posted on the walls,” he said.

Public Storage is giving new meaning to the word “collaboration” with its 2014 entry into the 125th Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena this Wednesday. The Glendale-based company invited employees from 33 regional centers across the country to help decorate a part of its inaugural float, titled “Adventures in Space” and featuring a “secret message” from the “mother ship” that will be spelled out in an alien alphabet. Each center was sent a letter that is part of the message, and workers decorated each one in yellow straw flowers.

Local residents turned out in huge numbers for the opening of Lon Bard's Glendale Theatre near Adams and Colorado streets in October of 1925, built on property owned by local businessman M. G. Khodigian. In fact, so many showed up that some couldn't even get in for the festivities: two full shows with entertainment, the first screening of Pathe News, a Felix the Cat cartoon, a comedy and the feature, "Speed. " It seems possible that a young boy about 10 years old named George Haney might have been at that grand opening.

Glendale's main street, Brand Boulevard, needs a better mix of retail tenants if it's ever going to promote more pedestrian traffic and coax people out of the Americana. Let's see, a law office, a dentist, two copy stores, a thrift store, a corset shop, a beauty school where you can watch students perform $5 haircuts or sit in their chairs looking bored out of their minds? Yes, there is a Starbucks, but it's the smallest and most cramped one you will every find. And of course, several empty store fronts.

Thousands lined Pasadena's Colorado Boulevard Monday for the 123rd Rose Parade that included an Occupy protest, an Iraq war veteran grand marshal and local students who rode atop Glendale's float. Themed “Just Imagine,” the event attracted an estimated 900,000 visitors and featured 44 floats, 21 marching bands and 20 equestrian troupes marching down the 5½ mile route through the heart of the city. The parade was held the day after New Year's to avoid disrupting Sunday church services.

There are probably few, if any, people who come into this world with a congenital love of marches. Blaring brass, blasting tubas and unison staccato drums - all playing at a fortissimo dynamic - is definitely an acquired taste. Yet there are few Americans whose hearts aren't stirred in some way by the opening strains of the “Marines' Hymn”: “From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli....” Something about that music and those words speaks to our elemental national character.

This year's Rose Parade will include a brotherly duo unlike any other - one is an astronaut and the other a rose expert, and both will greet onlookers from the fifth float in the Tournament of Roses. Rex Walheim, 49, has five space walks under his belt and has journeyed to low earth orbit three times on space shuttle Atlantis - including its final run in July. (He once joked on Twitter: “I don't fly in space often, but when I do, I only fly on Atlantis.”) Lance Walheim, 59, oversees a 17-acre citrus farm outside of Visalia, and when he's not tending to his blood oranges and mandarins, he's writing books on how to grow roses.